Soaring and diving from hilltop to valley along one of the quiet country highways through the Flint Hills will quickly challenge your notions of prairie. Flat? Not here. Empty? Not if you look closely. The continent's largest remaining tract of tallgrass is also one of America's unique places, harboring a wealth of adventure, beauty, and history. The region's sweeping horizons and carpets of wildflowers captivate artists and enchant visitors. Still, there's plenty of room to spread out. Come take a closer look.

The Flint Hills are an incredible, wonderful, almost magical place. There's no other place like it.

The Flint Hills are on fire, and it's cause for celebration in Cottonwood Falls. On this sunny April afternoon, visitors throng Broadway Street in the little ranch town (70 miles southwest of Topeka).

In The Gallery at Cottonwood Falls, browsers gaze approvingly at works of Flint Hills artisans, including furniture and paintings displayed against irregular brick walls. Locals meet for coffee at the Emma Chase Cafe where, on Friday evenings, musicians serenade a crowd gathered outdoors in folding chairs. A block north, waiters in crisp white aprons greet diners coming to lunch and dinner in the Grand Central Hotel, built in 1884 and renovated 11 years ago. At the south end of the red brick street, an American flag atop the ornate Chase County Courthouse snaps in the stiff, smoke-scented wind. Inside, visitors admire quilts draped over the winding 19th-century staircase. Among the region's most distinctive landmarks, the fanciful, towering, red-roofed limestone structure, built in 1873, resembles a Disneyland castle. The Prairie Fire Festival honors a Flint Hills ritual: the annual burning of huge swaths of prairie to renew the grasses and destroy encroaching trees and invasive plants.

Each spring, ranchers burn nearly one-third of this 4.5-million-acre enclave of unique highlands in east-central Kansas – the largest remaining tract of tallgrass prairie in North America. For a month or more, smoke gathers like fog in the valleys. At night, chains of orange flames dance across hillsides.

Fire is an age-old companion here. Before humans arrived, lightning ignited the prairie. Later, Osage and Kansa Indians observed that the flame-scorched earth quickly burst into a vibrant green carpet of young grass that proved to be an irresistible invitation to grazing buffalo and other animals. And so they lit fires.

"I guess they like the smell of smoke here," comments Melinda Cass, a Kansas Citian looking over a sidewalk display of Flint Hills photographs.

A Magical Place

They do. The people of this lightly populated area love the land and its ancient rhythms. And increasingly, they're sharing the Flint Hills with visitors at guest ranches, rodeos, along hiking and horse trails and at festivals, surrounded by the natural beauty of the region.

"The Flint Hills are an incredible, wonderful, almost magical place," says naturalist Jan Jantzen, who founded Kansas Flint Hills Adventures to lead prairie nature walks, horseback rides and prairie burns at his Grandview Ranch a few miles northeast of Cottonwood Falls. During the Flames in the Flint Hills Festival, Jan and 40 or so guests start two small prairie fires. They celebrate with music played by a bluegrass band over a dinner of beef stew. But first, Jan makes sure everyone understands the history and allure of his beloved hills.

With his shock of white hair under a weathered straw cowboy hat, Jan is quick to point out what he and many others believe is the central truth about the Flint Hills: "There's no other place like it."

Explorer Zebulon Pike named the Flint Hills in 1806 for the cobbles of flint-like chert that glinted through the tall prairie grasses. In truth, though, this 200- by 50-mile oval of rolling countryside gains its character from the fat, fractured shelves of underlying limestone that the thin hilltop soil only partially hides. In this nearly treeless region of immense horizons, big bluestem grass nourished by minerals in the limestone grows so tall that early explorers wrote of having to stand up in the saddle to get their bearings. The lush grass drew vast herds of buffalo that native hunters followed. Beginning in the mid-1800s, cattle rapidly replaced the buffalo, and homesteaders displaced the Indians. The honey-colored limestone provided building blocks, even fence posts, for settlers in the wood-scarce landscape.

Because its rocky soil stubbornly resists the plow, the Flint Hills region has kept much of its untamed character. The hills serve primarily to fatten up cattle – more than a million head graze here each summer. Council Grove, Cottonwood Falls, and several other small towns dot valleys along the Cottonwood and Neosho rivers. A handful of rural highways and country lanes wind among the hills, linking remote ranch houses. Here and there, barbed-wire fences arc toward the horizon. Yet the Flint Hills that visitors see today still look remarkably as they were described by early explorers. 

Exploring the Hills

The hills extend from near the Nebraska border south into Oklahoma. You can sample much of the wide-open scenery and Flint Hills flavor in the region's core, roughly bounded by I-70 on the north, I-35 on the south and east, and Kansas-77 on the west. Within that area, the Flint Hills National Scenic Byway stretches 48 miles along Kansas-177 from Council Grove, once a Santa Fe Trail staging area, south through Strong City and neighboring Cottonwood Falls, then on to Cassoday, a little ranch town that bills itself as the Prairie Chicken Capital of the World. Along the way, the route passes through some of the region's prettiest and most historic countryside.

Limestone homes, barns and outbuildings – most dating from the 19th century – dot grassy slopes and peer through cottonwood groves that shade streams throughout the Flint Hills. Many reveal Old World craftsmanship in their graceful design and precise stonework. Some stand abandoned, their wooden roofs, windows and doors torn away by storm winds or floods or consumed by fire. They look like Roman or Greek ruins transplanted in the heart of Kansas. Other limestone structures have been maintained or lovingly restored. The expansive Clover Cliff Ranch house, 30 miles west of Emporia, reputedly once hosted desperado Jesse James as an overnight guest in the music room. Today it welcomes weekenders, who stay in the 1860 main house and two limestone cottages. Guests can hike a 12-mile loop behind the houses without ever leaving the property. At Sun Rock Ranch, on a hilltop just south of Junction City, the deck of the 1877 house looks over a cattle pen to a panoramic view of the Flint Hills. Guests can ride the prairie on ranch horses. Between Council Grove and Cottonwood Falls, the Spring Hill Ranch complex was built in 1881.

Kansas artist Stan Herd captures a prairie scene

"The prairie wants you to participate in its discovery," explains Eric Patterson, a native Kansan who came home to serve as lead park ranger. "You have to look close."

As he drives a tour van, Eric points out blue indigo, crimson cardinal flower and many other plants. In all, more than 350 species of plants and grasses carpet the prairie here. Pausing on a ridge line with a gale of a southern wind ripping at the bus doors, Eric leads visitors to a tiny spring where a lizard suns on a rock above a bed of watercress. On the way back to the ranch house he points out the natural amphitheater where, on June 10, 2006, musicians from the Kansas City Symphony and a 100-voice chorus performed the first annual Symphony in the Flint Hills.

Along the Santa Fe Trail

Looking at the hills, it's easy to imagine a line of covered wagons creaking along with outriders in the distance. Council Grove once bustled with wagons filled with trade goods following the Santa Fe Trail between Missouri and present-day New Mexico. The Hays House restaurant fed trail drovers in those days, and still fills plates with memorable fried chicken, brisket and homemade pie. The Cottage House Hotel & Motel began receiving guests in 1870. From the gazebo on its wraparound porch, you can relax in the shade and watch the goings-on in the three-block downtown.

In 1825, Osage tribesmen and agents of the U.S. government signed a treaty here ensuring the future of the trail. A shelter just east of downtown protects the stump of the legendary Council Oak, under which the treaty was negotiated. In all, you can visit 18 historic sites, including the old Kaw Indian Mission.

Flint Hills Overland Wagon Train in El Dorado and Country Boys Carriage and Prairie Adventures in Newton specialize in giving visitors a taste of pioneer life. Both stage easygoing weekend excursions. Authentic frontier foods are served up from chuck wagons like those that traveled with herds of longhorns in the days when Abilene and Wichita were rowdy cow towns. Along its route in the region's eastern grasslands, Flint Hills Overland Wagon Trains occasionally follow the same Native American trail that Zebulon Pike trekked on his explorations through the region. And visitors suffer some of the same hardships – sore feet, sunburn, a feeling of being inconsequential in such a massive landscape as the Flint Hills. "They're here to learn a little bit about what the pioneers put up with," co-owner Ervin Grant explains.

Travel Tips 

Lodgings – Numerous chain motels in Abilene, Emporia, Junction City, Manhattan and Wichita. In Beaumont, the Beaumont Hotel in a restored frontier railroad inn with its own landing strip for fly-in guests. In Cottonwood Falls, 1874 Stonehouse Bed and Breakfast five miles from Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, and historic Grand Central Hotel downtown. In Council Grove, the Cottage House Hotel & Motel.

Dining – In Hillsboro, Olde Towne Restaurant for German food and weekend buffets. Hays House in Council Grove for homemade fare. Coffee shops and restaurants in Manhattan's Aggieville downtown district.

Festivals and Fun – Flint Hills Rodeo in Strong City (June 2–4, 2006), for exciting competitions based on cowboy skills. Historical reenactments, music and old-time crafts for sale at the FlintHills Folklife Festival in Cottonwood Falls (June 10–11, 2006). Native Americans in ceremonial dress dancing at Wah-Shun-Gah Days in   (June 16–18, 2006), which celebrates Santa Fe Trail days and Native American heritage.

Camping – Numerous modern and primitive campsites at Marion and Council Grove lakes, El Dorado Reservoir, and at local fishing lakes near most towns.